


In All My Dreams I Drown

by angelofbenignmalevolence



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Angst, Gen, Near Death Experiences, Near Drowning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26554072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelofbenignmalevolence/pseuds/angelofbenignmalevolence
Summary: There are those that say that drowning is peaceful…Gordon Tracy respectfully disagrees. Gordon Tracy knows that drowning can be the most painful experience without ever being dealt a physical injury…
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931245
Comments: 10
Kudos: 21





	In All My Dreams I Drown

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my "Bad Thing Happen Bingo Card." This was a prompt that I took on for myself because I couldn't get it out of my head. Thank you so much to misssquidtracy for being my beta on this!!!

The abrupt turnover from the weightlessness of dreams into the full force of consciousness is a rough transition at the best of times. It is made even more jarring when a person wakes in an unfamiliar setting. It is made almost unbearable upon the realization that every breath taken in burns to the core.

It took Gordon Tracy much longer than he would like to admit to himself to piece together his situation. His vision took a moment to clear. He pulled the blanket down from around his face, using it as a way to clear the sleep from his eyes. He looked around. The room was a sterile white with curtained partitions. There was no doubt in his mind that he was in a hospital.

He tried to sit up and immediately he was struck with the notion that it wasn’t necessarily his brightest idea. The muscles in his torso screamed protest in the form of a searing ache that spread through his chest. He gasped in a breath at the sudden pain, only for that to bring its own punishment. Fire burned through his body and he dropped leadenly back onto the pillows.

_Is this the end?_ Gordon thought to himself. The last time he had known a sensation as bad as this had been in the hydrofoil crash. He had thought that he was dying then as well. He took small sips of air as his body began to calm, the pain subsiding into a duller, more manageable ache. It gave Gordon plenty of time to reflect back on the events that led up to this. Everything was fuzzy in his mind.

He remembered a sinking ship…in the Atlantic? The North Sea? He remembered that it was cold and…the storm. Yes…there had been a storm. A big one. With violent waves. Thunderbird 4 had had trouble stabilizing in the rough seas as Gordon had worked to rescue those in the water and Virgil had worked to rescue those still on board the sinking vessel. But no matter how hard Gordon tried he couldn’t remember anything else. Everything was a blur.

He heard the echo of heels on linoleum, and for a moment Gordon realized how preternaturally quiet this wing of the hospital was. In every hospital he had ever been in, there had been the hum of nurses and the whirring and beeping of machinery, but here, there was no hum of ambient noise, just the steady footfalls of someone approaching his room.

He tried once more to sit up at the approach, slower this time. He didn’t know why he was here, but a bright smile and a bit of playful flirting couldn’t hurt his chances of getting out of this bed early on good behavior. He forced himself to lean back naturally against the back of the hospital bed.

Sensible black kitten heels were the first thing Gordon saw peeking under the curtain. Gordon frowned slightly. Neither the shoes nor what he could see of the legs that were covered only in pantyhose suggested that he was about to receive a visit from a nurse. Those were the trademarks of a lawyer or a reporter…unless…could it be?

Had Lady Penelope come to visit him in the hospital? The thought simultaneously thrilled and horrified him. He loved the thought that she worried enough to come visit him, but a part of him cringed at the thought of her seeing him like this. He wondered if he could get away with pretending to be asleep.

The curtain began to slide open. Gordon caught the flash of a sleeve in a very pale purple color. _Lilac_ his brain supplied, though he was more preoccupied with the fact that the sleeve, its color and texture and the shine of its buttons, was somehow both altogether foreign and yet intimately familiar to him. His mind hazily cast about for memories just out of reach even as the curtain continued to open.

_Lilacs…little purple flowers…a suit in a matching color…brown hair…a halo of white…white and wood…a coffin?_

Gordon’s stomach dropped. Any breath inside left him in a whoosh and, for a brief moment it was as if the whole world dropped away. His eyes locked with the eyes of the woman on the other side. The corners of her mouth turned upward into a pitying smile. Gordon’s mouth ran dry and his throat suddenly felt too closed up to function. There were several moments of stunned silence before Gordon was able to make his throat work.

“Mom?” The voice that escaped him was not the voice of the charming and daring International Rescue operative he had grown into, but the soft uncertain voice of a child.

“Hello, Gordon,” she said, moving to Gordon’s bedside. She sat down and Gordon exhaled shakily. He felt her weight on the bed, could feel the warmth rolling off of her even through the thick hospital blankets.

“Mom…I…I don’t…understand,” Gordon said. His heart ached and his mind whirred too quickly to get a sentence out in its entirety. She shook her head sadly.

“You’ve grown so much…” She reached forward to push a few stray locks of sandy hair from Gordon’s face. The brush of very real and very warm fingertips against his temples had a sob ripping from Gordon’s throat. Lucille drew Gordon into her arms and held him, just as she had done all those years ago when she had still been able to.

Gordon felt the rush of emotions pouring forth as he pulled his mother against him with an iron strength. Flashes of images played across his vision, blurred through tears that fell freely as he buried his face in her neck. Memories began to overwhelm his senses. Memories of peering into tidal pools at the beach, of learning to swim in the kiddy pools, of kisses on scraped knees and of falling asleep in his mother’s lap as she read to him before bed. Memories of the excitement before the fateful trip. Memories of a broken Virgil, his young mind falling easy prey to the survivor’s guilt that haunted him into his adulthood.

Memories of lowering his mother into the ground. Of the sky weeping as she was lowered into the grave. Of a family dynamic shifted by her premature departure from the earth.

Gordon wept as he once again was able to hold his mother in his arms. She made soft, soothing shushing noises, rocking him gently as she had done when he was young. He looked up at her, taking in every feature. She was just as he remembered her. The light dusting of freckles across her cheeks. Her warm eyes that used to dance as she laughed. There were so many things he wanted to ask her, so many words that raced to his lips.

“Am I dead?” It wasn’t the question he had expected to come out first. Lucille shook her head.

“You aren’t dead. Not yet, my little guppy,” she said, her hands continuing their soothing circuit from his hair to his shoulders and back.

“How are you here?” Gordon asked. Lucille considered her son for a moment. When she had last seen him, he had been a child. But Gordon was no longer a child. He had grown in strength. As much as she wanted to protect him from the painful knowledge he sought, she knew that it was no longer an option. Gordon was old enough to know the truth.

“You are in the in between,” she said. Gordon’s soft brown eyes looked back at her uncomprehendingly.

“The…in between?” he repeated. Lucille nodded and looked out to the hall, as if hearing something that Gordon couldn’t, “What happened, mom? Where are the others? Where’s Virgil?” Lucille’s eyes closed in pain.

“You nearly drowned,” she said. Gordon’s heart skipped several beats painfully.

“D…rowned?” Lucille took his hand and looked him in the eyes.

“When you and Virgil were in the North Sea…there was a wave…a violent one. It sent the ship listing. It nearly capsized. You were hit by falling debris and the ship sent you under as it thrashed in the surf…” she explained gently. Gordon’s second hand slowly let go of his mother as he brought it to his chest. The ache…the burn…it all made sense. There was a terrible, ugly familiarity to the experience. Gordon cast about for another question, anything to stay the onslaught of the memories from his hydrofoil incident.

“Were you there?” he asked. She shook her head.

“No, sweetheart. I wasn’t there.”

“Then how…”

“I heard Virgil telling the nurses what had happened,” she said, “He’s rather upset with them at the moment.” Gordon frowned.

“How come I can’t hear him?” If this was all happening around him, surely he would know. Lucille gave him the same pitying look she had given him before.

“You’re in the in between, guppy. You—“

“What does that mean?!” Gordon asked, a flash of his younger self rearing its head. She shook her head and pushed his hair back once more. She seemed to be working herself up to bearing some very unpleasant news.

“It means you are between life and death, my little guppy,” she said. “That you can see and hear me, means you are very close to death.” Gordon’s shoulders dropped, and he lowered his eyes as he processed the simple, yet completely devastating statement. So this was the end? He supposed he’d rather face it with his mother than on his own. Lucille leaned in to tilt his chin up again. “You aren’t dead yet, Gordon. You still have a choice.”

“I…do?” Lucille nodded to him.

“I don’t promise an easy or smooth recovery, but you can turn back now. You can still fight this, guppy,” she said. Gordon considered that a moment before locking his eyes with his mother again.

“But…what about you?” he asked, his voice small, “Will you be alone?” Lucille shook her head.

“Please don’t stay for me,” she said. “You deserve a long and happy life, Gordon. Don’t stay because you fear I will be alone. I will see you again one day.” Gordon’s eyes searched her face. If the pain in his chest was anything to go by, his recovery would be a long and terrible one. He didn’t relish the idea of another stint in the hospital. Yet at the same time, he couldn’t bring himself to forget about everything he had left to live for. His brothers…Grandma…Dad…Brains…Kayo…he couldn’t just let them down like this. He swallowed as he made up his mind.

“I’m so sorry, mom,” he said, pulling her into his arms once more, holding her like it was the last time. “I…I have to go. I have to fight.” Lucille smiled sadly and pulled him tightly against her as well.

“It’s ok, Gordon,” she said. “It will all be ok.” She slowly broke their contact and started to get up. Gordon couldn’t keep the small noise of protest completely down. Lucille walked over to the curtain surrounding his bed. She took it in her hand and took one more long look at Gordon, blowing him a kiss.

“Get some rest, Guppy. Your brothers will be happy to see you when you wake up.” Gordon watched her until she had curled the curtains all the way around and he didn’t dare close his eyes until her footsteps had vanished and he knew he was well and truly alone. Gordon dropped leadenly back on the pillow, thinking to himself that it was always hard to fall asleep with tears in his eyes.

~@~

Scott started awake as he heard a change in the rhythm of the machines measuring his brother’s vitals. He quickly looked around at all the monitors that were currently hooked up to his brother. Everything seemed to be stable….even elevating. That, at least, was promising. They’d almost lost him twice in the time they had been here and Scott wasn’t sure his heart could take a third decline.

He sat back in his seat and stretched his stiff shoulders. There was a reason they all hated hospitals. He almost missed the slight movement of Gordon’s fingers. He might have, if he had stretched a moment longer. Instead, he leaned in, putting his hand on the bed near Gordon’s.

“That’s it, Squid….easy does it…” Scott murmured soothingly. Gordon’s fingers again stretched out for contact, and Scott obliged, touching just fingertips at first. While Gordon wasn’t able to form words in his state, Scott could see his brother relax at the contact. Scott swallowed and pulled Gordon’s hand into his own.

“I’ve got you, Gordon. I’ve got you.”


End file.
